Providing Market Intelligence for 40 Years

In The News

DirecTV is making an Android-powered streaming box. What gives?

“If (AT&T) had a box that came in at $35 or under, consumers would be interested,” Brett Sappington told me. He’s the senior director of research at Parks Associates, which pays extremely close attention to the over-the-top (OTT) — meaning Internet-based TV — space. “They’d buy it just to see if it worked.”

Sappington reasons that a new streaming box isn’t dead on arrival, so long as it has a stellar user interface, is feature-rich, is open to all TV app developers and is relatively cheap. An existing DirecTV Now customer, for instance, may be compelled to test out the company’s box if it promises better streaming performance — say, no buffering during any live streams — and comes with some sort of service-plus-box deal.

From the article "DirecTV is making an Android-powered streaming box. What gives?" by Jennifer Van Grove.

Previously In The News

Apple Needs Netflix and HBO More Than They Need It

According to a survey from Parks Associates, 36% of households subscribe to two or more streaming video services. If Apple provides a convenient way for subscribers to see all of their paid content in...

Poll shows consumers not sure what 'Internet of Things' means

Dyn, the sites' common DNS provider, said its investigation showed that many of the compromised smart devices had been infected with a malware because of inadequate security protections. Since then, m...

AT&T Deal: Merger For New Media Era Or A Bad Remake?

Pay-TV operators are seeing a "slow erosion of the core business," analyst Brett Sappington at Parks Associates said. "After years of attempts to be more than just a 'dumb pipe,' pay-TV operators h...

Roku Plunges: 3 Reasons to Buy, 4 Reasons to Sell

Last August, Parks Associates reported that Roku controlled 37% of the streaming device market in the U.S., while Amazon, Google, and Apple held shares of 24%, 18%, and 15%, respectively. All three of...